Students Publish Class Zine, "W0RD$"

In the spring of 2015, Professor Elizabeth Stone taught a course on creative nonfiction writing at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. Though nearly an entire semester has elapsed since the class's last official meeting, her students have remained in contact as they've worked together to create "W0RD$", a class zine led by the efforts of FCLC senior, Sophia Venditti.

Vendetti, who will be graduating with a major in Communications and New Media and minor in Psychology, praised Stone and her classmates for fostering an ideal space for workshopping their pieces.

"It was small, and the Socratic seminar style in which it was held, along with the chemistry of all our personalities and everyone's honesty created a really special environment of trust. The result were some extraordinary pieces. Dr. Stone would give us a very loose prompt, and we had the freedom to take it and do whatever we wanted. This allowed for us to really write any story that was inside us--and we wrote about our families, our partners, friends, heartache, happiness...there was a bit of everything in this class, and that is what made it so exceptional."

With inspiration from her classmates' work and encouragement from Stone, Vendetti decided that she wanted others outside of class to be able to read the works that they had produced. She used her experience as Editor in Chief of her high school literary magazine and her knowledge as an avid reader of zines to put together "W0RD$".

"I ran my idea of making a zine by Dr. Stone, after she had mentioned that people really should read our work outside the class. Then I presented it to the class, and anyone who wanted to send me pieces--or other art, Jess Luszczyk contributed both writing and photography--could. I received work from nearly everyone, and from there assembled it in a flow I felt worked all the way though. Jess provided photos she paired with pieces, and it all came together in an amazingly special way. I'm thrilled people will be able to read these works, and want to thank everyone who contributed and supported this work."